Tears come to my eyes whenever I think of this girl. I do not quite know why, unless it is that there always is something sad in watching the tempering of a bright young enthusiasm, even though it becomes more useful than when so sparkling and high-strung. I have been at great pains to have Charlie Hardy realize how happy Louise is, but his conscience still troubles him at times. He says he knows he did the right thing for every one concerned, but he dislikes the idea of himself in so disagreeable a role; and Louise's opinion of him now, after the one she did have, is a constant humiliation to him. Women always have admired him, and he objects very strongly to any exception to the rule. I think he misses the mental ozone which he found in Louise. I often wonder if men who have loved superior women and married average ones do not have occasional wonderings and yearnings over lost "might have beens." The Mayos still live in the brown house, which has been enlarged and greatly beautified recently. I have an enthusiastic friendship with the children, who are growing into slim slips of girls and sturdy, clear-eyed boys, and their house is still a home. Frank's admiration for soubrettes died a sudden and violent death at the masked notoriety of his initial escapade, and for a time he was shocked into better behavior. We hear odd rumors floating around, however, of whose truth we never can be sure, but which we shake our heads over, after the fashion of those whose confidence has been caught napping once. We never knew whether Nellie discovered the truth or not. If Frank denied it, it would not affect matters with her if the world rang with it. Her idolatry has a certain blind stubbornness in it which I should not care to beat against. Bronson does not stand as straight as he did when I first knew him. Rachel says he has "a scholarly stoop." But she knows, and I know, that something besides law-books and parchment has taken the elasticity out of his step. Many years have gone by since I became an Old Maid. I want to call my Alter Ego's attention to this fact gently but firmly, because I have an idea that she still considers herself "only thirty," and that she thinks she has just begun to be an Old Maid. Whereas she is old and so am I. I do not mind it at all. Neither does she; it is only that she had not realized it. We have so much to think about more important than our stupid ages. People have grown used to seeing us about, and we like the same things, and keep going at about the same pace and in the same road, and I think we have come to be an Institution.